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Spider silk breakthrough

Posted: October 23rd, 2023, 7:27 am
by qwaszx
Genetically modified silkworms made to produce spider silk.
Tough stuff. If this does scale up as anticipated, it is a game-changer

www dot cell dot com/ matter/fulltext/S2590-2385(23)00421-6

(you’ll need to reconstruct that as I’m not “approved” to post links)

Re: Spider silk breakthrough

Posted: October 23rd, 2023, 8:19 am
by Urbandreamer
I find the username quite interesting.

I wonder if we shall hear further from qwerty, sorry that was qwaszx or keyboard wasn't it?

Re spider silk, work had been ongoing for decades.

Anyway as I can post, here is a different link on that goat related subject.
https://agfundernews.com/what-happened- ... silky-milk
, his lab looks after over twenty goats capable of producing silky milk. This is not just kidding around with mind-bending science experiments for its own sake;

Oh yes, that link does get on to using CRISPR to modify silk worms to produce food packaging using spider silk. It's possibly a bit less technical then the original link (below for convenience), which may make it a bit more readable.

http://www.cell.com/matter/fulltext/S2590-2385(23)00421-6

Re: Spider silk breakthrough

Posted: October 23rd, 2023, 11:02 am
by Hallucigenia
Heh, I always wondered what happened to the Nexia goats.

Spider silk is not the only game in town, talin also looks really promising as a biomaterial (and the science behind it is really interesting, cells use it as a mechanosensor among other things, as it stretches it opens up docking sites for different proteins) :

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-ne ... 180981319/